HOLLYWOOD, California -- It was reported Friday that film criticsRoger Ebert and Richard Roeper will drop their trademark Thumbs Up-Thumbs Down review method that has been used since Ebert and the lateGene Siskel joined forces back in the 1970s. Ebert, who has been absent from the show for more than a year, told UnNews Friday:

"The problem is that Disney, who owns ABC, who syndicates our show, wanted to buy the rights to the thumbs. Also, we lost our thumb insurance recently, and we decided we didn't want Michael Eisner or whoever's in charge now using our thumbs. So, we sold our rights to Howard Stern so that he can give Rob Zombie'sHalloweena rave review, which he did." said Roger Ebert on the issue.

UnNews learned Monday that the thumbs will be replaced by an all-new, albeit controversial method. "I don't know yet what we'll do for the really good movies," Richard Roeper says, "but for the ones that truly suck, we're gonna give them Two Fingers Up by flipping the bird. That'll show those hacks!"

Of course, the use of this obscene gesture will warrant a TV-MA rating for the longtime TV-PG-rated show. "The censors are gonna kill us," Ebert says, "but I don't really care. A lot of the movies we review now suck, and we just give them good reviews just to shut everybody up!"

A source close to the critics told us that the first Fingers Up review will be for the Christopher Walken ping-pong comedy Balls of Fury, which Ebert says "Has nothing on Halloween."